Sunday, March 10, 2013 7:43 pm

Quake hits Papua New Guinea; no damage or tsunami

The Associated Press

A strong magnitude-6.7 earthquake has struck Papua New Guinea but there are no immediate reports of damage and no regional tsunami alert.

Chris McKee, the assistant director of the Geophysical Observatory in Port Moresby, said the earthquake's epicenter was relatively deep and some way offshore so it was unlikely to have caused major problems.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck Monday morning about 320 kilometers (198 miles) north of the capital Port Moresby and was centered about 84 kilometers (52 miles) below sea level.

Papua New Guinea is on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. It's where most of the world's seismic activity occurs.